Why Failure is Awesome.
This blog was going to be called the importance of failure, but then I might start a trend (since the previous blog was named ‘the importance of the outdoors’) and have to write about the importance of things forever and ever, and then I’d run out of things.
Aaaanywho.
Why Failure is Awesome.
Failure, or losing, or not getting things right the first time is important, or awesome, or both. Recently I have found that a lot of the opportunities for failure, or loss, are being taken away because someone somewhere has decided that losing hurts children, or the act of failing is unhealthy. That is what is unhealthy, taking away opportunities to fail is like taking away opportunities to learn, it’s teaching children that they never lose, it’s completely ridiculous.
Growing up I played for possibly the world’s worst youth football team, I mean, we were beaten by at least 5 goals every week, I loved it. That’s not to say I loved getting beaten, I loved playing football and I didn’t care if that meant I had to get beaten every week, I just enjoyed kicking a ball (and sometimes the opposition) around. As far as I know those 6 or 7 years I spent getting beaten in pretty much every game haven’t harmed me at all, in fact, I would definitely say they have done the opposite. I’m more used to losing now (I still don’t enjoy it though), I don’t get disheartened when the team I now play for goes a goal down, I just try and play better and motivate the team to do the same (this doesn’t always work, but I try). I’m sure if I hadn’t lost as often as I had back then I wouldn’t know how to cope with losing now, which is basically my point. (Yes, that's me playing football, I'm the one with the red arrow stuck in his head).
If we teach kids, and whoever else, without the opportunity to fail all we will eventually teach them is that they don’t fail, they won’t learn from their mistakes because they won’t know how to. This isn’t just about football, clearly, failure caused by pretty much anything is healthy and should be, if not sought out, then at least not avoided completely. Every failure is a building block to success, not just in the short term, but also for the future, well, provided we can learn and figure out why we failed in the first place.
For instance, bad grades at school, (considered by some a failure) coupled with a teacher’s notes and hints on why you failed, or got those bad grades, should mean that you can use those notes to improve that essay – or your next one – for the next assignment. If you had grown up without failure and hadn’t learn to cope with criticism then it’s quite possible that instead of building on those instructions you would instead become downhearted or angry and pretty much leave it alone, and not learn or build at all.
So, to conclude, failure is good, failure is healthy… provided you can learn from those failures and take what you have learnt with you.
Allow your kids to fail, don’t be afraid of failing.
Ooh, that last sentence has made me think of another point, sorry. Worrying about failure and allowing it to stop you from trying new things should be avoided, definitely. You should never allow any fear to stop you trying new things, and certainly not the fear of failure. If you want to try a new sport don’t worry about not being good at it, jump in and find out! How do you expect to get better at anything if you stop because you’re not as good as you hoped to be!? If you start school somewhere new, or start a new job, don’t not talk to people because you’re scared they won’t like you, or you’re scared you’ll make a fool of yourself – just do it, how do you expect to make friends and influence people if you can’t influence yourself to talk to them?
Yeah, so, again, that’ll do now.
To summarise. Failure is not not an option, it is indeed an option, and it’s healthy, honest.
Toodles!
